Stereotypical Contradictions
by Arainia
Summary: Artie/Tina oneshot. People see them and instantly stereotype them, and they go along with it. But they in themselves are moving, breathing contradictions. R&R.


**Stereotypical Contradictions**

**Artie**

**1. Happy**

He says he's perfectly happy with his life, and he acts like this little ray of nerdy sunshine. But the most popular choices on his Ipod are _Adam's Song_ (Blink 182), _Just Feel Better_ (Santana ft. Steven Tyler), _Everything You Ever Wanted_ (Hawk Nelson), _The Coldest Heart_ (The Classic Crime) and _Heavily Broken_ (The Veronicas).

**2. Height**

In terms of height, he's probably the shortest guy in the school. In terms of moral character, however, he stands taller than every other teenager in that town.

**3. Indifferent**

He says he's indifferent to the way people treat him- like ignorant baboons- but in reality, every time someone makes a mean cripple-esque joke or shoves him into a filthy porta-potty or tapes him to his own chair, he's so full of emotions that he figures it's best if he doesn't show any.

**4. Quiet**  
Everybody mistakes him for "quiet", just because he doesn't have a lot to complain about like Rachel (it's all about her all the time), Mercedes ("I'm not busting my butt just to be Kelly Rowland! Hell no, I'm _Beyonce_!"), Quinn (if you look her name up in Urban Dictionary, it's synonymous with "Queen Bitch") or Finn (Quinn's baby daddy, who really doesn't seem to know how he got her pregnant in the first place). But Artie has complaints, ones that vary from the fact that he needs toileting assistance and sometimes he doesn't even feel himself go to the bathroom, to the fact that due to society's inaccessibility, he feels like a complete and total outcast, even in his own home. He's also very observant, so he can see that beneath her deranged diva exterior, Rachel's a sweet (he says that loosely), lonely girl with a lot of talent who's just searching for a place to belong. Mercedes, in direct contrast with her loud, confident personality, is secretly insecure in her own skin. Quinn… well, there's no back story for her. She's just mean, and now that she's pregnant, her hormones are fickle than usual. As for her boy toy, who laments about the fact that this so-called "immaculate conception" happened in a hot tub and they didn't even have sex, well, maybe Quinn was chosen to be some sort of new age religious icon by heavenly decree or something. Then again, Artie has seen the way Puck looks at her and her burgeoning belly- with tender care and concern- and he's seen the way Quinn looks at him when she thinks no one's watching. Perhaps underneath the wicked witch guise, there really is a decent human being. But he's not going to hold his breath on that, especially after seeing the way Quinn verbally abused Finn the other day at glee rehearsal. Oh, and while he's on a rant about his fellow Gleeks, he wants it to be known that his biggest pet peeve with the club is the amount of solos Finn gets. Artie knows he has a better voice than his much-taller companion, and he's not being big-headed about it, because he rarely compliments himself; he just thinks that from time to time, he should be given the chance to shine. Not to mention that Finn is still learning how to move while singing, Artie can wail on the guitar like nobody's business.

**5. "I'm okay"**

It's kind of like his catchphrase. He says it all the time to avoid dealing with emotional messes. "I'm okay," he told his mother when he arrived home after school one day covered in bright green paint. The football team wanted to try out their new paintball guns and he was the target. "I'm okay," he told his father when the principal had to call him at work to tell him that Artie had been strapped via duct tape to his own chair for two class periods. Artie thought it was sad that nobody realized he was gone for two whole hours, then again, he's the Invisible Guy At Crotch Level so why would anyone have bothered to care? "I'm okay," he told Tina, the day after her secret came out. The secret where she'd only been _pretending_ to have a disability; but that incident, Tina's betrayal, had hurt him more than being accosted by paintball-gun wielding meatheads. When he says "I'm okay," he says it with a smile. But he rarely means it.

**Tina**

**1. Rebel**

She likes to act like the embodiment of teen spirit at school and around other students- she dresses in black, has blue streaks in her hair, acts like the very definition of antipathy- but a little known fact about her is that she _likes_ to follow rules. She likes it when things are clear and there are distinguished lines between what's appropriate and what's not. For example, in the seldom-seen front pages of the planners that each McKinley student is granted at the start of the year, the first rule on the list is 'no vulgar language will be permitted in the hallways of this establishment'. This rule is obviously tired and broken on a second-to-second basis by the students and lots of the teachers (Coach Sylvester especially). But Tina takes it seriously. She never swears because it's against the rules.

**2. Depressing**

Partly thanks to the way she dresses and partly thanks to the way she acts, people think that she's depressing. She must be, with all her darkness and the way she looks sad all the time (nobody stops to think that she might look glum because she just finished scrubbing congealed slushie off her face, do they?). She doesn't go out on weekends, she has a Myspace page and she hangs out with the school cripple. Her life _must_ be sad. Honestly, Tina doesn't go out on weekends because she likes hanging out with her parents, and she only has a Myspace because back when it was cool, her cousin made one for her. She hangs out with Artie not to get her daily fix of misery, as everyone believes, but because she sees what no one else does. He's intelligent, funny, sarcastic and above everything, he makes her happy.

**3. Special Needs**

Thanks to her (self-inflicted) speech impediment, students stay clear of her. They think she's special ed. But the truth is that she makes straight A's and is at the top of every class she's in.

**4. Cold**

A lot of people would say she's cold for faking a stutter just to push others away. Really, she's just scared of getting close to someone and being hurt. She wants so badly to belong too.

**5. "F-f-f-fine."**

Whenever someone asks her if something's wrong, she simply shakes her head and manages a pathetic "f-f-f-fine" as an answer. She'd told her mother that she was "f-f-f-fine" on the first day of high school when the cheerios stole her clothes during gym class and returned them with rips and tears and a rude slogan on the front. She insisted to her father that she was "f-f-f-fine" when Puck tripped her and she went sprawling down the school stairs, right into a mud puddle. When Mr. Schuester asked her if she was okay after practice the day following her confession to Artie, she couldn't help it. When she told him she was "f-f-f-fine", she broke down and started crying- big sloppy sobs that let the world know she was definitely _not_ fine. In fact, she thinks, without Artie will she ever be fine again?

* * *

Another Artie/Tina oneshot because I'm on lunch at school and procrastinating on the work I _should _be doing. This plot bunny has been bouncing around in my head for a week, and now it's finally out. Please let me know what you thought, feedback is greatly appreciated =)


End file.
